Item #5 (Choose One)
Notes Choose one as the situation demands.

Rod of Tahuti is good if you're ahead / are able to be aggressive and not worry too much about tanks. It allows your abilities to deal very high damage, especially when enemies are below 50% health. Synergizes well with Potion of Magical Might, as well as the Red Power Buff.

Obsidian Shard

Rod of Tahuti

Late-Game Item Considerations
Notes These items may be considered as item #6 and Shoes replacement (via the purchase of Elixir of Speed) depending on the match, and may be a situational (but not preferred) substitute for Item #5.

Divine Ruin is great for anti-heal. Consider against high enemy healing at any point you feel it'll help, but preferably after the core items.

Soul Gem can provide the only health sustain you're likely to see outside of teammate heals.

Doom Orb is a late-game offensive consideration due to the price. Goes great after Rod of Tahuti for massive power.

Bancroft's Talon is a functional lifesteal item that gets more use the more damage you take. Consider if you look to maximize your kit's function via all abilities near and far (including fighting/comboing with the explosion from Elemental Mastery). Can be considered early or late.

Celestial Legion Helm is a counter to physical damage. If you're needing to play defensively (hopefully not as you have long range poke and a mini-Blink) against high physical damage threats, then you can consider this. You'd probably consider a bit earlier in the game.

Soul Reaver is a late-game situational item that can work well for many mages. It sees a bit less effect when comboing quickly with abilities, but can provide good additional burst damage, especially against tanky enemies.

Shaman's Ring

Divine Ruin

Soul Gem

Doom Orb

Bancroft's Talon

Celestial Legion Helm

Soul Reaver

Relics
Notes In almost all instances, these will be your relics of choice.

Purification Beads

Aegis Amulet

Late-Game Consumables
Notes Potion of Magical Might can be picked up anytime after the 4th main item, when you can fit it in your budget. It provides a temporary 10% CDR and a boost of power. It synergizes well with Rod of Tahuti's passive.

Elixir of Speed is a very late-game item used to take place of the MS from Shoes. You'll sell your Shoes and replace it with an additional, full T3 item of your choice.

Potion of Magical Might

Elixir of Speed

Merlin's Skill Order

Eclipse / Radiate / Frostbolt

1X

24679

Vortex / Dragonfire / Blizzard

2A

18111214

Flicker

3B

315161819

Elemental Mastery

4Y

510131720

DMBrandon's Build Video

All credit for the original build goes to DMBrandon, per his YouTube video below. Like him or not, his general knowledge is solid and his reasoning makes sense.

The alternate choice for level 1 is Eclipse / Radiate / Frostbolt. However, this is riskier, because in order to hit the entire wave with Radiate, you have to stand adjacent to the front minions while channeling, putting you much closer to the enemy and making it easier for enemies to hit you. In addition, during the channel, the enemy can decide to get hit briefly, turning the minions on you for high early damage.

Up To Level 5

At level 2, get the other damaging ability you didn't pick up at level 1.

At level 3, you have a choice. The safe choice is to put a point in Flicker for the escape, though it can also be used offensively to gank. Otherwise, prioritize Eclipse / Radiate / Frostbolt, and pick up Flicker 4th if you're confident in your safety.

At level 5, put a point in Elemental Mastery as it is an additional ability that provides damage in addition to your other abilities.

- Radiate is good for medium-range encounters, and to follow up control of an area by Dragonfire

- Dragonfire provides good minion clear, and is also used for the protection debuff. Although it can be cast at range, you may consider using this at your own feet when a melee enemy engages with you...stand in the fire to force them to attack you while taking damage and the debuff themselves.

Arcane stance has the lowest damage potential, but is most helpful for escapes ( Vortex pull, Elemental Mastery knockup). It also has good range for poke potential.

- Eclipse has pretty good poke function, but moves a bit slow so is less reliable unless you're fairly close.

- Vortex also provides good poke function, and can help provide a measure of control with its pull, especially in a teamfight situation.

This is a good point. Not usually my preference, at least through the first 6 items (4 being core, and a lot of the other options being a lot more appealing to me), but it's not bad, and I don't mind adding the item to the late-game considerations list. Thanks for the feedback!.

FYI build updated. Also, I added details to the Reaver tooltip to include its recent nerf info.

Merlin can go both routes. Book of Thoth, or Chronos' Pendant Rush. Book of thoth builds have pretty potent power lategame/once you have mana items online, while pendant-rush builds are better early to mid game, while lategame they rely on the Tahuti passive to proc (or shaman's if you have it). Then there's the bancrofts rush builds but thats only if you really need the sustain and if you think the passive will come in useful.

Surely, all mages can go Thoth. But I think that some mages are better going other build routes, due to how their kits work. Merlin is one of these cases, as well as Anubis, Raijin, Agni, Hades, etc.

And as a general rule, I honestly think Soul Reaver should only be built alongside Thoth. The only two exceptions would be:
1. If the mage has a very high burst damage ability ( Nu Wa's Fire Shards, Scylla's I'm a Monster, Thoth's Final Judgement, etc.) so you can reliably proc Reaver's passive without the nerf to the damage.
2. If the enemy team has 3 or more gods building health items (Blackthorn, Warlock's, etc.).

Sorry Vini, completely disagree on Reaver. Reaver is more situational now since the nerf (rather than build on almost any full damage mage), but it's still got some good effect, and doesn't need Thoth to have that effect. Reaver is like Qin's, in that it deals more damage against higher health targets. It's not dependent on power, and although the mana makes it great for Thoth builds, it's still technically fine on its own.

In the same way all hunters can go trans. But Anubis just doesen't work well with Thoth.

Merlin is not 100% strictly that case. Also Raijin and Agni can both do well with Reaver (and both can go a book of thoth build). Hades is awful with book of thoth because you have to get Book of the Dead to make it worth it slightly on him.

So with Soul Gem, it wasn't something that DM mentioned...it was something I threw in, because it seemed like the best general choice for lifesteal/health sustain due to how his kit worked, and how he likes to maintain distance if possible.

But Soul Gem is not something equivalent to Gem of Isolation. Iso is a CORE item. Soul is a situational add. Iso provides some amazing control throughout his kit, and Soul shouldn't be considered OVER Iso.

I'm sure you could pick up Shaman's Ring 5th if you really wanted. The bonus damage is nice, and you'll always be able to use the added MS.

ok ty..and for boot? pen or mana? i think mana is better cause he consume really a lot of mana...so i can switch late game the boots for soul gem or more penetration/anti-heal? im uing the buil posted here and seemend really good..still i have to figure the beste combo for fight and for approach.for what i have seen playing fire 1st is a good finisher..but generally i nott see so great damage output in general

i had only 1 game that go so far and i bought soul gem.my start is t2 boots t1 pendnat for the mp5 then i finih boots and spear.currently i am playing on ps4 cause the clan i am in on pc is too high lvl..everyone is 130 or 150 while i am only lv 40 so is really hard for me to play and learn something even if sometime i have done good but is really hard.but on ps4 ppl really not know how to play conquet..random gods,random role..is really hard to play

From playing Merlin 4 games so far (3 Wins, 1 Lost, all games over 9 kills and less then 3 deaths in each), I've felt that the Arcane Stance is quite forgettable. You're getting great zoning and damage from Ice Stance (Which is literally the stance I sue 90% of the time), Great burst/nuke with Fire Stance and just... weird zoning tools with Arcane Stance. Arcane also has the least damage potential from all 3, so I do agree that starting any engagement with Ice is better then Arcane

I find the 2 on Vortex Stance only useful when you're getting chased by an AA melee god, since you can put it at your own feet and they either back up or get sucked back in. Also, Vortex stance has his hardest combo IMO

Joust: start with mages blessing tier 1 Bancrofts then go pen/cdr boots, Bancrofts, magus, gem of iso, Obsidian/divine/tahuti choice for last 2 items. You don’t have to get Bancrofts though and you could go chronos’ pendant Early and get soul gem later in the build

Thing is, you usually do special things for Conquest. You have longer travel to the middle of the lane. In mid, you're mostly going to be alone. You need to worry more about mana consumption and sustain, because being forced to back means losing out on valuable farm and early pressure on your tower.

And this is historically where stacking items come in. You buy them, they're fairly expensive but they allow you to sustain or give you a chance to stay in lane longer. Book of Thoth gives you a huge mana pool so you don't have to worry about running out. Warlock's Sash (historically at least) would make you tanky so you could absorb a lot of punishment, while also giving you nice mana and reasonable power.

This build doesn't have that. You don't have to worry about early stacking. In Joust, you have teammates that can usually cover for you if you have to back (which you will do way more often than in Conq).

You're building quickly into high CDR for poke, and high pen for massive damage.

Thus, it's okay to use just as it is.

Now, any adjustments to consider might be depending on some factors.

Instead of Magi's Blessing, you might skip the starter, rush Shoes and get Chalice of Mana and a couple of health potions to sustain you early.

If you've got a Guardian on your team that can deal some decent early damage (e.g. Bacchus, Sobek, Artio, etc.), you might get Spear of the Magus before Chronos' Pendant to allow them to deal more early damage. On the flipside, if you're the only magical damage dealer, maybe you get Chronos' Pendant first just to maintain high poke, since you'll be the only one to benefit from Magus' protection reductions.

Gulf suggested Shoes of the Magi. I personally don't feel that's necessary. Shoes of Focus should be just fine (especially if you don't get the Blessing and its added CDR), because you're getting Magus either 2nd or 3rd.

And just like the rest of the build, after finishing Gem of Isolation as the 4th core item, itemize however you want. Divine Ruin for anti-heal, or Soul Gem if you want some of your own health sustain. Rod of Tahuti for general offense, or Obsidian Shard for anti-tank. Shaman's Ring for added MS and general enhanced damage. You can even consider protections, since the entire match is a teamfight. Etc., etc.

One thing I suggest is to watch DMBrandon's video. He goes over the details of why he feels the items listed are key/core items. They do make sense to me. I do think there's some option for alternatives he didn't list (such as Divine Ruin, which I added in my own situational listing).

Bancroft's Talon is probably not a good/important item for him. Why? To get the most out of the passive, you need to take damage. So ask yourself this: is Merlin a bruiser? Does he always (or even often) need to be close to deal his damage? Does he have to stay still (like Anubis or Hades) when unleashing most of his damage, or engage into ranged basic range (55 units or so) like Zhong Kui or Freya?

Answer there is...no. He's got some great ranged abilities. He can poke without too much threat of damage, AND he has a mini Blink. So getting that passive damage boost is unlikely to happen that much. Bancroft is always a solid item just for the base stats, but he won't always get the most out of it like others would. If you want lifesteal, you're likely best going with Soul Gem, which again, I do list as a situational consideration (but don't know if it's 100% viable...just a theoretically better option for health sustain.

Book of the Dead is only really great when you have high mana in your build, since the passive shield is based on your max mana. In the general build, the only 2 sources of mana are Bancroft and Focus. BotD should mostly not be considered unless you also build the highest mana item of all... Book of Thoth. And Thoth is weaker based on the importance of the core components of Merlin's kit, because those should be prioritized for earlier aggression and function overall. So no Thoth, which means, no BotD.

The rest of your mentions are already in the listing of the build. Do those explanations help?

Keep in mind, I haven't played Merlin yet. I just basically converted DM's video into a build.

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